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Friday, 18 September 2015

IntroductionContemporary civilization and its progress under capitalism are measured
largely, though not exclusively, by stock market indicators and the wealth
index of corporations and millionaires that mainstream media celebrates. All other
issues are only significant if they enhance or diminish corporate wealth. This
includes the political, social, environmental issues that may either entail
greater profit opportunities or instability and lower profits. “Accordingly, the extent to which corporate
democracy represents general, social interests or narrow, profit-oriented
interests is largely a function of political contestation and state policy.”
Carl Gershenson, “Protecting Markets from Society: Non-Pecuniary Claims in
American Corporate Democracy” Politics and Society (March, 2015,
vol. 43, no. 1)

This “corporate measure” of
the social contract in modern society is to the exclusion of the misery index
in what Frantz Fanon once called “The Wretched of the Earth”,
referring to the manner that imperialism determines social class in Africa and
the masses’ reaction to create a more socially just society. The conditions
Fanon described pertaining to Algerian struggle against French colonialism
pertains today to conditions that capitalism universally creates and
perpetuates as it always has since its nascent phase in the 15th
century when European colonialism and the transatlantic slave trade began. An
African-American youth shot by the police in the ghetto in 2015 is just as much
a victim of the same class formation that capitalism creates as an Algerian
youth fighting against French colonial rule in the 1950s.

The corporate measure of the
social contract and a successful civilization based on linear econometric progress
of corporations is a sharp deviation from the humanist values of the
Renaissance, the Scientific Revolution, and Enlightenment in Western
Civilization rooted in creativity, intellectual achievements in everything from
the arts to natural sciences, and to the welfare of humanity as a whole. The
corporate measure of the social contract is an assertion of elitism and
inequality and a rejection of humanist values and social justice.

Apologist of capitalism
would of course give credit to capitalism as a system for unlocking human
creative potential of such scientific and technological innovation. Since the
transition in the 15th century from the Feudal/Manorial social
order/mode of production to capitalism there have been phenomenal technological
and scientific inventions intended to improve everything from human health and
comfort to unlocking the secrets of the universe. The same apologists, however,
do not fault capitalism for structural poverty that persists on a world scale;
for the countless wars in the name of capturing markets and increasing profits
that have resulted in the deaths of hundreds of millions in the last five
centuries; for societal violence emanating from socioeconomic inequality; and for
human rights abuses and absence of social justice that are invariably at the
core of capitalism.

In the post-Communist era,
the specter haunting the entire world is neo-liberalism, driving many people to
seek alternatives in some form of Socialism. The fall of Communist regimes had
their experiments with one-party states and “command economies” in the name of the
proletariat in the 20th century. Those regimes failed for a variety
of reasons including constant assault from capitalist countries at every level
from the costly arms race to counterinsurgency operations and ideological
propaganda campaigns. In the early 21st century many people are
wondering if the “End of History” celebrating the US Cold War victory over
Communism (Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man)
that marked capitalism’s triumph means anything more than hegemony of the
wealthy over the rest of the world’s population in every domain from economy
and politics to the arts for profit.

Capitalism under neoliberal
policies is indeed without rivals throughout the planet in the post-Communist
era where the US remains the world’s sole superpower despite China’s economic
challenge. Communism as it operated during the Maoist era no longer exists even
in contemporary China that practices capitalism and abides by the same rules of
the international market economy and its institutions such as the IMF, World
Bank and World Trade Organization. The “end of history” is indeed the end of
Communist regimes but merely another step in society’s evolution and the
continued struggle between the hegemonic capitalist class and the masses
seeking social justice.

Do people around the world
look to established Socialist parties for salvation (about 60 countries have
socialist parties), or must citizens continue looking and creating grassroots
socialist movements to find the best possible “social contract”? Socialist Party
politicians know that there is absolutely no resemblance between a European
Socialist Party today and the First International (International Workingmen’s
Association, 1864-1876), or even the Second International (1889-1916) that
dissolved because some European Socialists were more nationalistic than they
were Marxist internationalists. Throughout Europe, political parties calling
themselves Socialist are no different in representing finance capital to the
detriment of the rest of society than conservative parties pursuing neoliberal
policies.

Using the argument that
Socialist parties are committed to social justice, defending trade unions,
defending the poor, defending minorities, defending collective bargaining, and
guarding against the abuses of capitalism, Socialist parties were able to keep
their popular base in the post-WWII era, while securing the support of
capitalists who understood the significance of social harmony under a social
contract where labor and the lower middle class enjoyed some benefits and
believed the system served them as well as the capitalists. However, the
triumph of the US over the Communist bloc emboldened the neoliberals eager
to crush even the remnants of Keynesian policies left over from the early Cold
War. During the Reagan and Thatcher decade, the US and UK followed by other
governments began to dismantle the social welfare state in order to strengthen
defense and the corporate welfare state.

Socialist parties changed
their agendas and went along with neoliberals by the 1990s. No matter the Socialist
rhetoric while they are in the opposition or even when they are in government
their policies are hardly any different than those of the conservatives
representing a tiny minority of the population. The only resistance, a rather modest one at that, to neo-liberalism does not
come from Socialist parties or Socialist governments whether in France, Spain,
Portugal or Greece, but from nationalist regimes such as Russia, Iran,
Venezuela, and a few others, and this largely for geopolitical considerations as
well as domestic sociopolitical dynamics.Socioeconomic equality,
social justice and the welfare of the entire society are the themes in the
debate between Socialism and capitalism. Socialist theory contends that
capitalism creates and perpetuates socioeconomic inequality, social injustice
and elitism against society’s collective interests.

Advocates of capitalism insist
equality of opportunity for the individual is of paramount importance in the
social contract that guarantees safety and security from domestic and foreign
enemies. Socialist theory advocates a strong central government to safeguard
social justice and the interests of all people in society, while capitalism
advocates a weak central government and a hegemonic capitalist class whose
interests the state safeguards by maintaining inequality through fiscal and
labor policy among other mechanisms. Just as Socialism entails a social order based
on a value system and a code of ethics centered on human welfare, similarly,
capitalism is rooted in a social order based on a value system of amassing
private profit in an unfettered marketplace where the very few benefit to the
detriment of the many.

From schools and churches
to sports and entertainment, from market relationships to human relationships,
all institutions operating under capitalism embrace its rules in order to
survive. Unless it adopts the corporate model of governance and orientation
that includes links with the business world, the university seeking large
endowments from wealthy people and corporations, it is not likely to survive in
a competitive field. It is simply not practical to have an enclave of a
prototype antithetical to capitalism in just about any domain in society because
the superstructure operating under capitalist rules, values, and code of ethics
would ultimately crush or make irrelevant the antithetical prototype. This is
something many have discovered in the last two centuries from Robert Owen and
his followers that popularized the term Socialism in the 1820s to the present.

Socialists of varying types
in the 19th century amid industrialization of society understood
that capitalism is a new system of servitude that dehumanizes workers for the
sake of amassing wealth for capitalists. There is a gap between the promise of
capitalism to provide riches for all while society becomes more industrialized,
scientifically, and technologically advanced, and the reality of a system
creating wealth for a small percentage of people. The majority of the world’s
population is left behind to dream of becoming wealthy while subsisting in
daily misery, while a middle class as a buffer between the masses and
capitalists helps to maintain the social order. What happens however when the
middle class begins to decline as it has in the US and across much of Western
Europe in the last three decades? According to the Economic Policy Institute,
the bottom 90% of Americans experienced 5% income growth between 1979 and 2007,
while the top 1% of Americans enjoyed 390%, illustrating how capitalism slowly
destroys itself by undermining the buffer middle class.

Werner Sombart, Krieg
und Kapitalismus, (1913), and Joseph Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism and
Democracy (1942) analyzed the dynamics of capitalism’s contradictions,
using the Marxian concept of “creative destruction” to explain the evolutionary
process of the mode of production and contradictions inherent in the system. While
they were both reacting to 19th century Industrial capitalism and
the destruction of wars of imperialism that the capitalist system created
ultimately leading to WWI, elements of the theoretical foundations of their
works are applicable in our time.

In the early 21st
century when capitalism prevails triumphantly under a neoliberal ideological
and policy orientation, the fundamental question is what does the majority of
the population want from a social contract? Because people are born into a
capitalist system with the state as its guardian and promoter throughout the
world, it is extremely difficult to bring the system down and replace it with
any degree of ease as some believe. Those who enjoy power, wealth and privilege
throughout the history of all civilizations rarely surrender what they enjoy
for the sake of the good of society as some believe simply because it is the
right thing to do for the welfare of society.

Human Nature and CapitalismIs capitalism consistent
with human nature and does it reflect it as apologists argue, or do
institutions under capitalism simply reinforce human nature's atomistic and
irrational aspects as detractors insist? In short, is capitalism in existence
for five centuries because it closely reflects human aspirations, greed,
irrational proclivities, the desire to amass material possessions and to live
in a hierarchical society where there are few rich people and many are poor? Is
humanity indeed carrying the seeds of evil from Adam and Eve as some in Western
Christian tradition believe, or do human beings create structures that mold
human behavior?

During the ancient times,
whether 5th century B.C. Athens or 1st century A.D. Rome,
prevailing ideas and culture that we know about today are those of the elites
and have nothing to do with peasants, workers, or slaves. Culture makers were
the elites, not the peasants, workers and slaves who carried out manual labor
so that the leisure classes could devote time for their endeavors. The same
holds true of the Middle Ages when the temporal and spiritual Lords prevailed
in society in every respect controlling all institutions from church to the
military and economy and determining everything from values to how people
married and often whom they married. In short, the elites pass on to the rest
of society values and code of ethics as a means of maintaining a given social
order.

It is not much different
with capitalism; in fact, it is much clearer under the capitalist system
because the evidence is ubiquitous in all segments of society’s dominant culture.
People have ingrained in their minds that institutions and the existing social
order is “natural”. Just as the serfs in the Middle Ages believed God meant for
them to be in servitude because this is what priest and Lord reinforced,
similarly Plato argued that some human beings are meant to be slaves,
dismissing the idea that slavery is a manmade institution resulting from
private property and war. Under capitalism, the idea has been inculcated into
the minds of the masses that if they are poor it is not because there is an
economic system based on socioeconomic inequality and social injustice but it
is simply their fault for any number of reasons, all of them having to do with
personality traits and individual responsibility.

Going beyond the arguments
of Thomas Hobbes, The Leviathan and John Locke, Two Treatises of Government
about whether human beings are inherently evil and prone to disharmony in the
state of nature (Hobbes), or inherently good and prone to rational behavior,
there is the larger issue of how the dominant culture molds the minds and
behavior of people in general and how the institutional structure rewards
conformity and punishes dissidence. In other words, people merely wishing to
survive will conform. Palmiro Togliatti pointed out (Lectures on Fascism) that
a worker will accept Fascist Party membership, brushing aside ideology that may
be rooted in humanist values and code of ethics.

This is a theoretical
domain to which Antonio Gramsci (Os
Intelectuais e a Organização da Cultura) also made significant
contributions, analyzing how the dominant culture helps to perpetuate the
social order. The dominant culture of our time shaped by five centuries of
capitalism has the distinct advantage just as the Feudal/Manorial Christian
culture of the Middle Ages prevailed to keep the vast majority believing it was
God’s will for them to be oppressed and subsist in misery finding relief only
in the afterlife. Despite systemic obstacles to change in society, capitalism
exists in fixed time of civilizations in different parts of the world. Like previous systems it
has developed contradictions and it will begin to decline and ultimately give
way to a new order. The enemy of capitalism and the culprit of its downfall is
the system itself, not Communists, Socialists, jihadists, nationalists,
ultra-left guerrillas, or any external force attacking and undermining it.
However, this is hardly visible not only to capitalists but to workers as well
who may be fatalistic, nihilistic, apathetic, or have turned to inward
spiritual endeavors as a substitute for what is lacking in the social contract.

Just as the French serf in
the 10th century once believed God meant for the social order to
exist as it did and there was no alternative to it. Similarly, the insurance
office manager in New York City and the farm worker in southern France may be
convinced by the media that capitalism is above history and will exist until
the sun becomes extinct. This is what the dominant culture has ingrained into
the minds of the masses so this is what they hold to be dogmatic truth in the
early 21st century.This is
not to say that there are not those in our time, just as there were in the
Middle Ages that opposed tyranny and the absence of social justice. The
dominant culture silences or minimizes the impact of dissident voices about the
need for social justice and an alternative social order. Not just the Holy
Inquisition, but the Lords and Bishops dealt effectively with heretics of the
Medieval Era, just as the modern state under capitalism has always dealt
effectively with dissidents.

The masses are much more
willing than many among the elites realize to bring about change in society
that would end oppression, discrimination and inequality. Although academic
studies show that it takes many years, in some cases decades as in China from
the First Opium War (1839-1842) to the warlords (1916-1928) to Mao’s rebel
movement (Jiangxi Soviet Republic of China, 1929–1934), popular uprisings
ultimately do take place as history has demonstrated. In defying elites and the
dominant culture, invariably they will follow an authority figure (s) challenging
the status quo, as did theologian Thomas
Müntzer (1489 –1525) who took a leading role in the German Peasants’ War.
The same holds true from the French Revolution to the Cuban Revolution when the
masses proved more willing to support social change than the elites assumed or
wanted to believe. Social change is very slow while social discontinuity as
Western Europe experienced from the 14th to the 16th
century comes so slowly that it is hardly noticeable when a new social order
and mode of production evolves.

Historical Synoptic Perspective of
Capitalism vs. SocialismWhy should people vote for Socialist
parties after they have proved again and again since the 1980s that they are as
neoliberal as the conservative parties rooted in the Reagan-Thatcher ideology?
By what right do people vote for Communist candidates after the fall of
Communist regimes in the late1980s-early 1990s, and the Chinese Communist Party
promoting millionaires and billionaires as the new saviors of society? How dare
leftists cling to a discredited ideology associated with disruption, if not
destruction of the bourgeois social order in Russia, Eastern Europe, parts of
Asia, and Cuba in the 20th century?

The answer for those
advocating some version of Marxism rests in the reality that the various
political regimes under which capitalism has operated in the past 500 years
have always left people aspiring for social justice and the goal of serving the
welfare of all people instead of the privileged few, a view that the French
bourgeois intellectuals promoted in the 18th century in their
struggle against the privileged nobility and upper clergy. The quest for
equality and social justice that the social contract must embody is as true and
timeless today as when Thomas More wrote Utopia during the transition from
the Feudal/Manorial social order/institutional structure to capitalism.
Certainly the question of capitalism vs. socialism manifested itself in the English
Peasants’ Revolt of 1381, German Peasants’ War in the 1520s, both long before
the bourgeois French Revolution, manifested aspects of Socialism as an
alternative.

From the French Revolution
of 1789 to the environmental movement of the 21st century, people
who believed in some form of Socialism have contributed to worker and child
safety, slavery abolition, eight-hour work day, social security, rights of
women and minorities, and much more. Above all, socialists of varying types
have always struggled to keep bourgeois political parties a bit less hostile to
labor, women, and minorities, fighting against tyrannical regimes that used
brutal force to repress dissidents demanding human rights, and social justice
as was the case with the European Revolutions of 1848 and the nascent American
labor movement in the 1880s and 1890s. Socialists envisioning a society rooted
in humanist values and not capital accumulation for the tiny minority
endeavored to tame the capitalist system from within with reforms and from the
outside with protests so that it does not leave as many children and their
parents destitute in soup kitchens and in back alleys sleeping in cardboard
boxes, especially during hard times of deep recessions.

Despite the fact that wars
of imperialism from 1870 to 1914 led to the First World War and Second World
War, which was in many respects a continuation of the first; despite the fact
that capitalism is predicated on inequality and the state in many countries
throughout the world, from 19th century Russia and Mexico to 20th
century US has led campaigns against workers through violent means;
despite that capitalism keeps promising “the promise land” only to deliver
wretchedness for the masses whether in sub-Sahara Africa or rural Mississippi,
its apologists continue to eulogize this as the best and only system fit for a
decent society. The marketing and selling of capitalism under the neo-liberal
panacea was helped enormously by the downfall of Communism, by the US campaign
on terrorism that fed the defense industry, and by the idea that there is no
alternative to neo-liberalism anywhere in the world, considering that China as
part of the global marketplace goes along with international market rules, with
the World Bank and the IMF.

Capitalism has prove
resilient because it has demonstrated that it can operate under varieties of
regimes, from Absolutism in early modern Europe, to parliamentary bourgeois
democracy in the 19th century, to Fascism, Nazism, and varieties of
authoritarian governments in the 20th century. What all of these
regimes have in common is that the role of the state is not to fulfill the
social contract as conceived by liberal and democratically-minded political
philosophers of the Enlightenment era, but to serve, protect, and strength
capitalism and its institutions in their evolving state. Since the late 19th
century, finance capital with the backing of the state as an instrument of
absorbing capital through the fiscal structure has as its first priority to
maintain the hegemony of the markets by allowing them to operate freely during
the expansionary cycle of the economy, and providing capital to sustain them
amid contracting cycles.

Under such role of the
state, socialism is an arch-enemy that capitalism is constantly at war against.
In practical terms this means that the enemy of capitalists are the masses
aspiring to a social contract that includes them – again, a bourgeois concept
that the Enlightenment introduced (Emmanuel Joseph Sieyes, What is the Third Estate? 1789),
but one that opened the Pandora’s box for mass politics after the European
Revolutions of 1848. Does the social contract include only the privileged
elites the state represents - before 1789 in France the secular and spiritual
nobility, now the capitalists – and are they the nation and embodiment of the
national interest, or are all people included in the social contract?

1.Is the United States really becoming a socialist country, or is this
propaganda? Democrats and Republicans might differ with social spending, but do
both parties support a free market without regulations?

There is absolutely no evidence that Democrats and Republicans differ on
their adamant opposition to Socialism not only as regime, but even as a third
political party with any legitimacy, or a social movement that has popular
support. Differences in the two parties are limited to the degree that there
must be regulatory mechanisms the state must impose in order to rationalize the
capitalist system as far as Democrats are concerned while protecting the weaker
classes and maintaining a middle class. As far as Republicans are concerned the
less government the better in every domain except defense, domestic security,
intelligence operations, and criminal justice system. There are Libertarian
Republicans who would have no problem simply handing over government agencies,
and to a degree this is a reality with outsourcing government tasks, to the
private sector although this means a much higher cost to the taxpayer and much
less efficient public service.

The ideological convergence of neoliberals with right wing elements that
include the Christian fundamentalists and those supporting the militarist
Jewish lobby is a reflection of a strategy to co-opt as much popular backing as
possible to forge a popular base from which to oppose any inklings of
Socialism. For a functioning representative democracy to continue serving
capitalism, while projecting the image of democracy, a popular political base
that includes segments from the Christian right to the petit bourgeois
professionals is essential. At the same time, there is complete convergence of
the elite political class and elite socioeconomic class – people in both coming
from the same bourgeois class and representing the same interests.

Even the self-proclaimed progressive politicians from the FDR Democratic
wing in the 1940s until Bernie Sanders in our time represent the same capitalist
interests and their continued hegemony. However, they differ on
cultural/lifestyle issues and the degree to which the fiscal system must be
structured to sustain a sound safety net for the poor while maintaining middle
class incomes. Because of the Cold War that was effectively used by both
Republicans and Democrats to forge popular consensus and maintain the status
quo against any movement advocating social justice and equality, and because of
the “war on terror” campaign since the end of the Cold War, the American
political pendulum has been swinging to the right.

Blatant racism, xenophobia, sexism, ethnocentrism, and anti-labor
sentiment once camouflaged behind political correctness rhetoric are now part
of the Republican public dialogue. This is not an accident or simply “politics
as entertainment” as many inthe “liberal media” like to dismiss it instead of
analyzing the issues in depth. On the contrary, the mainstream media, including
the so-called “impartial” New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles
Times, PBS and NPR, to mention only a few, all with a long history of
helping to forge popular consensus in support of capitalism and support for
militarist foreign policies in the name of liberal democracy, have helped to
bring the public toward a more rightist orientation. While the media as
integral part of the capitalist system can only eulogize it so it can survive,
it actually presents itself to the public as “objective”, as though its
coverage and news analysis represents all people and not exclusively the
socioeconomic and political elites.

It is not so much the fanatic rightwing ideologues that make no secret
that they approve of the Confederate flag in public buildings, but the
“liberal” media presenting itself as the “progressive voice of the people” that
has really been responsible for guiding the public toward an increasingly
rightist orientation in domestic and foreign policy. The journalistic and moral
bankruptcy of media outlets can be seen as much when they never raise social
justice as a core campaign issue by questioning presidential candidates on it,
any more than they question the bombing of children and women killed en masse
by drone warfare across the Middle East and Africa. While many may not see a
correlation between foreign policy and domestic, the reality is that the former
is a reflection of the latter and neoliberal policies drive both. The US as a
status quo imperial power aspiring to maintain Pax Americana status does not
want structural change at home any more than it does abroad where it wishes to
preserve its role as the world’s policeman.

There are many well-paid “opinion makers” that insist the US is
“Socialist” because Franklin Roosevelt established a social safety net during
the New Deal that many people then and today regard as a Socialist. The
Democrat candidate for president in 1972 Sen. George McGovern among other
Democrats including presidential candidate Bernie Sanders are also “Socialist”,
although both of these individuals were well within their party’s mainstream as
their voting records indicate when it came to supporting capitalism and its
institutions. The US has moved so far to the right in the last four decades
that it is slowly slipping toward a quasi-police state largely to push through
very unpopular neoliberal policies and military solutions to international
political conflicts that any voice opposing militarism and neo-liberalism is baptized
“Socialism”.

Anti-Socialism rhetoric has persisted from the Gilded Age and the famous
labor strike by the American Railway Union against the Pullman Palace Car Company
in 1894 until the 1980s when Reagan adopted a series of anti-labor and
anti-union policies the political and business establishment has fought to
crush any traces labor rights that compromise capital accumulation. While the
labor movement had a number of labor leaders, including Socialist Eugene Debs
in the 1890s, today America has very weak trade unions and thoroughly co-opted
by the Democrat Party serving big capital and adamantly opposed to any aspect
of Socialism Debs advocated more than a century ago. Just in the era of Debs
the entire political and justice system, including the Supreme Court always
side with big business against labor.

2.Do Americans really
understand socialism?

The vast majority of the American people have not studied in depth the
theory and history of capitalism and socialism, nor do they really need to do
so in order to understand that the current social contract does not represent
them no matter what the Constitution promises about equality. The prevailing
view in society is that capitalism is “natural” to human nature while Socialism
is antithetical and destructive to society. This view comes not just from the
vast majority of the teachers from elementary school all the way to graduate
school, but from the community, church, politicians and above all the media.

Let us assume that the American people understood in varying degrees both
capitalism and socialism. Does this mean that the majority would opt against
capitalism? There are very well educated people, including progressive
economists and social scientists in general that realize the destructive nature
of capitalism and its anti-human pro-capital orientation. Yet, they cannot wait
to line up behind any institution that sings the praises of established policy
in any domain and represents the promotion of the existing institutional
structure because only in this manner is the professional social scientist,
journalist, etc. able to achieve the dream of a successful career. No matter
how rational, how brilliant, how sound and humane the ideas are of an
individual, they are worthless if not dangerous unless they promote or at least
do not hinder the status quo. In short, capitalist institutions promote
opportunism and co-optation of everyone from the politician to the musician who
must commercialize her art to survive.

Raising class consciousness
is paramount for political action, but this too comes from the realities of
daily life just as it did for the millions who followed 20th century
revolutionaries rather than reading the works of any socialist theoretician. The
oppressed Chinese peasant did not need to have a copy of the Communist
Manifesto next to her to know exploitation any more than a Maquiladora factory
worker today in Mexico, or the American farm worker in Alabama. Working three
part time jobs just to feed the family while the owners of the companies are
making millions constitutes sufficient proof that the system is stacked against
labor and in favor of capital. An ideological framework helps to place
everything into a coherent perspective in order to mobilize popular support for
a grassroots movement. This was the position of the Enlightenment thinkers
before the French Revolution and it was just as true in 20th century
revolutions. Marginalizing, discrediting, ridiculing, or silencing dissenting
voices that demand social justice and stigmatizing them as “Socialists” because
they pose a threat to the capitalist status quo allows the mass media to exert
influence over public opinion in favor of capital and against labor.

The same strategy the media
and politicians adopt to impose conformity on domestic issues also holds true
when it comes to foreign affairs. For example, the media and mainstream
political and academic establishment present the pacifist dissenter advocating
a political solution to US-engendered instability in the Middle East as
irrational, unrealistic, unpatriotic and dangerous to national security.
Meanwhile, those advocating unilateral or multilateral military intervention
are pragmatic voices of reason simply because defense companies make money when
government adopts military solutions rather than diplomacy. The reward for the
militarist is a high-paying consulting job, chair at one of the various think
tanks funded by corporate money, advertisements in the newspaper or TV
supporting military solutions, etc. People, especially young college graduates,
see who is rewarded and who is left behind in society. Naturally, they follow
the pursuit of self interest over what the media describes as idealism that
will never make the American Dream a reality. After all, American millionaire
dreams are not made by doing or saying, or writing what is in the best
interests of all people in society, but only what will retain the privileges of
capitalists.

Socialism and capitalism reside under the wing of
democracy. Which out the two systems works best and why? Democracy is a word the
ancient Greeks invented to refer to popular sovereignty. However, when the
Athenians implemented it into practice (Cleisthenes father of Athenian
democracy, 508 B.C.), popular sovereignty was limited to adult males only, to
the exclusion of women, foreigners and slaves. When it came to decision-makers,
Athenian “radical democracy” (direct vote and participation rather electing
representatives) entailed that the individual had to be somewhat well off to
have an education so he could actually rise to speak in the assembly to influence
the opinion of the rest. In reality, democracy was limited to the properties
classes and it was always a struggle between the landowners and the merchants
and shipping interests.

In 1689, England took a
major step toward representative government with a strong Parliament and weak
executive, but the legislative branch was the domain of the landowners,
merchants, bankers and shipping interests, to the exclusion of the vast
majority. While the American Revolution had a Constitution guaranteeing
freedoms and liberties for all, it excluded Native Americans, women, and of
course slaves, while the poor farmers and workers were hardly in position to
participate and have their voice heard. The French Revolution was the first
attempt in Western civilization to introduce popular sovereignty, but it
quickly collapsed.

The age of mass politics of
the 19th and 20th century in the Western World entailed extending
voting rights to people previously marginalized, but the reigns of political
power remained with the propertied classes. In short, empirical evidence
throughout history does not indicate that democracy was ever a system of
government that truly meant popular sovereignty to be all-inclusive and to
guarantee social justice. On the contrary, history shows that democracy has
been a form of government intended to serve capitalist interests, although
there are immense variations between the Norwegian model that takes the working
class into account and the American model that is strictly a system limited to
the very wealthy with only lifestyle/cultural freedoms extended to the rest of
the population.

Socialism is a very broad
concept because there varieties of Socialist theories from Christian Socialism
rooted in Western tradition that dates back to the Black Death, to Scientific
Socialism that Marx and Engels introduced in the Communist Manifesto, coinciding
with the Revolutions of 1848. In the age of mass politics, aspects of Socialism
have become part of the bourgeois mainstream because the capitalist system
could not survive otherwise as John Maynard Keynes realized during the Great
Depression. The social fabric could not possibly hold together in the absence
of the state intervening much more heavily than it ever had in the economy to
absorb surplus capital in private hands, combined with deficit financing and
use such resources to stimulate the capitalist economy.

This policy mix that some
call “Socialist” emerged from the realization that capitalism left to its own
devices would collapse without the state to buttress it. If the state withdraws
its support, whether through central bank interest policy making liquidity
available for businesses to borrow cheap capital, subsidies of all sorts from
export to building infrastructure or facilities, as well as direct bailouts
amid recessionary times, then the capitalist system would decline and ultimately
fall. The only pillar maintaining it is the state that has been an instrument
of redistributing income from the bottom of the socioeconomic pyramid up toward
the capitalists.

The question is how long
can the state remain the pillar of capitalism before collapsing? It could be
argued that this could continue another two or three centuries. However, the
mounting public debt not just of the US at more than 100% of GDP or of Japan at
more than 200% debt to GDP ratio, but also other countries around the world
will at some point entail a global crisis of such magnitude that the system will
cave in. The combination of public and private debt will reach unsustainable
levels to the degree that monetary inflation will reach levels not so different
than what people witnessed in the Western Roman Empire during the “Third Century
Crisis” that represents the start of a transition toward the Feudal/Manorial
social order.

Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire correctly
asked the question how did the Roman Empire with the combination of financial,
economic, political and military collapse actually survive as long as it did.
Nevertheless, the Fall of Rome in the long 5th century did mark
social discontinuity. I am convinced that similar patterns with some variations
are applicable in the 21st century. The capitalist system will reach a point
when it will be unable to operate under a pluralistic bourgeois model that
accounts for a thriving middle class and it will only be able to sustain itself
under a form of authoritarianism. This is already a reality in a number of
countries including the US in 2015 where downward socioeconomic mobility is
accompanied by an increasingly corporatist state relying on the military and
police-state methods to preserve the dream of an unsustainable and waning Pax
Americana.

3.What has caused more financial turmoil in the past
century, corrupt forms of socialism or unrestrained capitalism?

Corruption among political parties with the label
“Socialist” in France, Spain, Portugal, and Greece, among other countries
including the most egregious cases in developing nations, has been an
undeniable reality. Corruption in the former Soviet Republics, especially
Romania but also in the USSR were indeed egregious to the degree that they
undermined the moral fiber of the entire system and betrayed the ideology that
indentifies corruption with bourgeois regimes. There is no doubt about systemic
corruption in bureaucratic Socialist countries any more than there is in
countries operating under Socialist parties but well within the capitalist
economic system. For 25 years before he fled Romania, President Nicolae
Ceausescu (1965-1989) had pillaged the country to the detriment of the vast
majority of the people in the name of Communism.

The cult of personality cultivated by 20th
century Communist leaders and the corruption that accompanied it dealt a blow
to the system as much in Romania as in North Korea and China. China’s
pro-capitalist Communist party is one of the most corrupt in the world and it
admits the problem is real and not anti-government propaganda. In Power
and Prosperity, Mancur Olson argues that communist regimes are even
more prone to corruption than capitalist dictatorships. However, corruption has
been an endemic part of capitalism in both private and public sectors for
centuries, but the system remains in place and has not collapsed like Communism.
Corruption by itself was not a catalyst to the downfall of Communism any more
that it played a prominent role in Socialist parties opportunistically
embracing neo-liberalism so they would be able to govern by serving capitalism
even better than conservatives that do not have an ideological claim to the
masses’ interests.

Unrestrained capitalism, which includes endemic
corruption in both public and private sectors, has actually caused far greater
damage to financial turmoil from 1637 during the “Dutch tulip market bubble”
until the sub-prime disaster of the first decade in this century that caused
the worst global recession since the Great Depression. Despite such shocks in
the market that drive unemployment high and living standards low for the
majority, apologists of capitalism insist this is the best possible of all
systems to serve mankind.One reason for
this is that under neo-liberalism we are re-living the Gilded Age.

During the Gild Age (1870-1900), which coincided
with the American industrial revolution and the Westward Movement and
Reconstruction, there was indeed enormous corruption, partly owing to lobbying.
Everything from the infamous Tammany Hall (corrupt machine politics), to the
manner that trusts and cartels were free to do as they pleased at the expense
of society. Politics became increasingly
a business of catering to business of those politically connected at the
expense of the rest of society from consumers to labor organizers demanding
safe working conditions and fair wages so they could live above the poverty level.

The response by Republican and Democrat Progressive Era politicians was
to expand government through more and larger bureaucracies and make it more
merit-based so it could better serve capitalism as a whole, including balancing
the interests of disparate sectors. A major goal of the Progressives was the
overall growth of the capitalist economy with the state as the pillar of
support while at the same time protecting the consumer to a small degree and
addressing some needs of the middle class that viewed big business as
predatory. Progressivism projected as a “reform” movement managed to co-opt a
segment of the population in support of capitalism.

Although the expansion of the middle class accounted for the reforms
under Progressivism, Gilded Age monopolies and oligopolies continued to prevail
in formulating public policy, while government remained their protector.
Throughout the 1920s, lobbying became more organized and intensive. Operating
in a pro-business climate, lobbyists used more high-pressure tactics to secure
passage of legislation by targeting committees and regulatory commissions. With
capitalism collapsing in 1929, the New Deal and WWII entailed greater
regulatory measures and centralization of government. The New Deal
de-radicalized the masses and co-opted them into the Democrat party in support
of capitalism.

However, the trend to restore the preeminent role of business in public
policy returned with the Truman administration. The Cold War followed by the
“war on terror” became the pretext to permit as much laissez-faire latitude as
possible so that capitalism becomes stronger. Unrestrained capitalism in the
last four decades is responsible for downward social mobility and the fact that
even in 2015 with 5% official unemployment rate in the US income levels are
below what they were in 2007 when the Lehman Brothers scandal broke and the
stock market crash followed in 2008. Unrestrained capitalism is what
neoliberals want and what mainstream politicians represent.

In the first week of June
2015, the media celebrated the momentous occasion of Jimmy Diamond, head of
J.P. Morgan, who joined the billionaire’s club. This is of course very typical
of the media to celebrate such individuals without regard to their record of
corruption and destructive actions that negative impacted not just the US
economy but the world.As head of J. P.
Morgan, this individual has a history of corrupt practices that range from
fixing rates and manipulating interest rates to hedge funds manipulation the
led to the sub-prime lending crisis of 2008, to the more recent Justice
Department allegations that FIFA soccer association used this bank among others
Wall Street firms to launder money.

Predatory capitalists of
our time – Barbarians at the gate dressed in expensive suits - will do anything
from launder drug money in the billions, promote conflict to sell weapons to
governments, manipulate interest rates and currency rates and securities, and
payoff government officials for favors, as Republican presidential candidate
Donald Trump candidly admitted. The barbarians in suits that the media and the
dominant culture revere and eulogize ad nauseam fear the people, dread popular
sovereignty, and detest a social contract and policies that encompasses the
interests of all and not just the socioeconomic elites.

Why do
free market economists fear socialism?

Economists are a microcosm
of the rest of society and reflect the dominant cultural and political influences
and ideology. I do not believe that anyone should be surprised that the
majority of them embrace capitalism in some form, whether under a Libertarian
system, a dictatorship, a representative democracy or a social democracy with a
strong social safety net. Just to survive in society and have a thriving
career, economists have little choice but to embrace capitalism, otherwise,
they teach and remain content with the idealism derived from their chosen profession
influencing young minds.

All economists know that
socialism means the means of production rest with the state on behalf of all
people, or common ownership. They may not like state control or they may think
it is bad for society because it promotes principles of collectivism instead of
individualism, but at least they know the gist of socialism. Economists also
know that socialist production is not geared to maximize profits in every
sector from luxuries to weapons manufacturing, but to meet human needs. They
may detest the idea because they may not believe in egalitarianism, or they may
believe this is just a deceptive theory never implemented in practice as preached
in writing. Economists also know that the role of the state is catalytic in so
far as it determines how to meet the needs of all people collectively and not
to permit production, distribution and exchange of everything from the high-end
luxury market to weapons and handguns, to Hedge Funds that realize parasitic
profits for a few individuals.

It is understandable that
economists as apologists of capitalism fear socialism because they fear popular
sovereignty. The existing system is predicated on capital accumulation and
hegemony of a small percentage of the population that owns most of the wealth.
As it undergoes periodic expansionary and contracting cycles more people
experience downward mobility. Only state intervention through a policy mix that
dilutes free market economics can reverse such a trend, something neoliberals
detest and equate with Socialism. Market economists dread any policy mix that
suggests the only way to save the political economy and social order is to
dilute it.

In the US especially,
opposition to Socialism is also a function of historical tradition rooted on the
Puritan work ethic and the idea of self-reliance and individual pursuit.
Government interfering to provide health and welfare for the poor is an
anathema to the “Puritan work ethic” advocates who have no problem when
government provides hundreds of billions to bail out banks and insurance
companies, guaranteed loans, tax breaks, direct subsidies, lucrative government
contracts for everything from sanitation to intelligence outsourcing, etc.

4.Do free market economists
confuse the term ‘regulation with socialism’? Is regulation and socialism
the same thing?

Chancellor Otto von Bismarck put into policy a number of the platforms from
the German Socialists because he realized this is was the best way to preserve
the status quo and pursue German capitalist interests at home and abroad. Health
and disability to pension plans were Socialist demands that the chancellor whom
his Liberal opponents accused of promoting “state socialism” – social welfare
policies that eventually all of the Western nations adopted – put into place
during the 1880s when the German Empire was thriving. Of course, I must
emphasize that what 19th century German Liberals and other
apologists since then call state socialism is in essence state capitalism and
indeed the only effective method of preserving capitalism with relative
sociopolitical harmony.

The European conservative and liberal political admission that capitalism
must co-opt the masses in the age of representative democracy spread to the US
during the Progressive Era, although the US did not opt for as much regulatory
mechanisms under Theodore Roosevelt as it did under Franklin Roosevelt.
Opponents of regulations to protect workers, the environment, consumers,
children, the mentally ill and the elderly argue this is socialism. The demand
an end to as many government regulations on the market as possible and removal
of as many government obstacles to movement of goods, services and capital as
possible, allowing the market as much freedom to play by its own rules
uninterrupted by the state and acting on the laws of 'supply and demand'. On
the one hand, this sounds great to the businessman because who wants red tape
interfering with wealth-creation mechanisms. But is it not businesses that invite
the state's intervention in: a) subsidies, b) tax breaks, c) bailouts, d)
barriers on foreign goods that are competitively priced, e) intervention
against monetary policies of countries enjoying competitive advantages, f) and
a host of other areas from research and development paid for by taxpayers to
infrastructural development?

Deregulation under neo-liberalism also means de-unionization of the labor
market, canceling workers' rights achieved in the first half of the 20th
century, and imposing wages that are as close to subsistence as possible. The
rationale is that the US, EU, Japan, etc. must become competitive because China
is rapidly out-competing the advanced countries. How do developed countries
become competitive? They bring wage levels down so that they can maintain high
profits and keep market share. When they speak of 'competitive', they mean
lowering wages and benefits and securing tax breaks and subsidies.

5.What countries show the
greatest aspects of capitalism and the greatest aspects of socialism? Of these
countries, which ones seem more socially stable, the capitalist run economies
or the socialist run economies?

Capitalism is and always has been an international system seeking constant
expansion which means that all countries in the world, especially in the
post-Communist era of globalization, are operating under its rules within
varying degrees. If we exempt the unique regime and political economy of North
Korea heavily dependent on China for its existence, there are no countries
today that are Socialist. There are self-described Communist states like China,
Vietnam, Cuba and Lao People’s Democratic Republic. However, these are totally
integrated into the world capitalist system and practice capitalism with a
strong presence of the state in the private sector. There are capitalist
countries that have policy mix many describe as socialist, including Norway,
Sweden, Holland, Belgium, Denmark, Finland and New Zealand.

The reason for the Scandinavian countries earning the socialist label is
because of the considerable focus on a strong welfare state that accompanies
corporate welfare in order to maintain social and political harmony. In other
words, there are countries today that are much more committed to a model of
democracy that takes into account the lower classes social and economic
interests while supporting capitalism at the national and international levels.
All Scandinavian countries and Holland of course are excellent examples of this
paradigm. Even Canada has a very strong social safety net in comparison with
the US. Nevertheless, Canada is very much committed to buttressing corporations
and assisting them in securing market share throughout the world by supporting
policies just as neoliberals in the US.

From its formative phase until the present, the market economic system has
been predicated on global integration and asymmetrical relationship between the
strongest economies of the core and the weaker ones in the periphery. Under
neo-liberalism, the asymmetrical relationship has intensified, although the
myth of the neoliberal apologists is that the gap between rich and poor
countries will close rapidly. Not only is the gap wider now than it has ever
been between the 20 richest nations and all the rest, but it is widening as the
southern and eastern European nations are experiencing debt problems and they
have been compelled to adopt austerity measures whose ultimate goal is to impose
greater conformity to neoliberal policies. The structural problems that brought
the periphery EU countries (Portugal, Spain and Greece) under austerity have
now spread to a number of Latin American republics with Ecuador appearing as
the most vulnerable and Venezuela amid falling oil prices. With depressed
commodity prices, the growth-by-debt cycle is gradually now turning into an
austerity nightmare for many developing nations.

The least stable countries are the capitalist ones with a weak state
structure, a weak national capitalist class, externally dependent for loans and
investment needed for development, and a propensity toward reliance on the
police and/or military to maintain political power and social order. The weak
state structure is a manifestation of external dependence or neo-colonial
conditions prevailing in countries that include most of Africa, much of Latin
America and parts of Asia, but also much of Eastern and southeastern Europe as
well. The integration models for such countries make them vulnerable to
exploitation by patron states.

According to an OECD report (2014), the best years of capitalism are over
for this century at least. The developing countries will experience growth and
development in the next fifty years as they industrialize and try to catch up
with the advanced nations.As migrant
labor moves from the poor nations to the wealthy ones by the millions in the
next fifty years, the OECD expects modest growth just under 3% but also
continued inequality to persist at great levels. Like most think tanks, OECD
assumes rapid scientific and technological advancements that will be driving
growth in the 21st century, but it also assumes the US and EU
absorbing 30 million migrants so that there is no disruption in workforce and
tax base needed to sustain the economy.Considering
the long history of racism and xenophobia in the US and Europe, the migrant
issue will contribute to sociopolitical polarization already evident in the
political arena today.

The anomaly of slums next to skyscrapers in major industrial cities,
including New York, Los Angeles, etc. is something that we can expect at even
more dramatic rates than we have witnessed so far. “Third World” conditions are
already an integral part of developed societies and will be even more so in the
coming decades. This is a manifestation of socioeconomic polarization becoming
more prominent that would further expose the contradictions in capitalism as
the system becomes increasingly weaker.

There is a huge gap between what apologists of capitalism that promised
dreams of riches for all in post-Communist world of globalization and
neo-liberalism and the reality of social polarization. Mongolia is an excellent
example of a society where in the recent years (Mongolian Revolution ended
Communism in 1990) capitalism has created very few extremely rich people while
an estimated 60% live in abject poverty not just in rural areas of nomads but
in the capital Ulaanbaatar of 1.3 million where the masses are in tents next to
mansions of billionaires and millionaires. Socioeconomic polarization in
Mongolia is typical of many former Communist countries and it is a reflection
of where society is headed in this century across the world.

The OECD report (2014) predicting increased inequality on a broad level is
in direct conflict with optimistic scenarios that politicians and business
people project through the media when they ask for the public’s continued
support of the system. If the OECD report becomes reality and the PR “war on
poverty” is in fact war on the poor because of the nature of centralization and
concentration of capital, then everything from healthcare and education, to the criminal justice system and quality of
life in general will deteriorate for the bottom half of the population,
precipitating social polarization. At the same time, institutions increasingly
will be marginalizing the masses and the state will become more authoritarian
to deal with the social, economic and political challenges, thus creating new
dynamics for social discontinuity.

From the Persian Empire
(Achaemenid, 550-330 B.C.) to ancient Rome (27B.C.-410 A.D.), from modern
imperial Japan under the Meiji Restoration (18681945) to the British Empire
(mid-16th to mid-20th century), the fall of empires can
be attributed to military spending outpacing economic strength on a chronic
basis.This is a topic that Paul
Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers (1989) analyzes in depth,
and it will be of no surprise to anyone that the US falls within this pattern.
From the war against Mexico during the Polk presidency in the 1840s until the
present the US has committed itself to imperial status and like all empires in
history it has been devoting resources to defense at the expense of the
civilian economy.

In all wars, the arms
merchants are propagating conflict, always in the name of security and lofty
idealist principles rather than their profits. If Dante lived in the 20th
century of mass wars, he would probably have to create a tenth circle of Hell
for his Inferno where all arms merchants, arms manufacturers,
politicians advocating arms buildup, opportunistic consultants, lobbyists,
journalists, and academics advocating militarism whose victims are by far
innocent civilians; well-worth the human sacrifice, of course, because the arms
industry remains profitable, while the masses continue to believe it is for the
sake of freedom, democracy and the welfare of humanity.

Just as developing the agrarian, mining, and
manufacturing sectors in the 19th century propelled the US into
Great Power status by the outbreak of WWI, unsustainable defense spending has
eroded US economic status in the world in the 21st century. Such
spending under corporate welfare and neoliberal policies will continue to erode
the civilian economy as time passes and the political establishment continues
to cater to the defense contractors that so handsomely reward politicians with
campaign contributions, military officers with jobs after retirement, and
consultants advocating for an even greater defense budget and more militaristic
policies. American militarism in itself is not a catalytic dynamic for social
discontinuity because capitalism is an international system and it can continue
thriving in the rest of the world as it declines in the US. However, the US
militarist course will force other countries to continue spending on defense as
well and the cumulative effect of eroding the civilian economy on a world scale
has a much bigger impact on the mode of production.

Utopian societies do not
exist, and at this point in our civilization it appears highly doubtful human
beings will ever be able to create a society based on complete equality because
elites will always exist in some form. The question is whether a more just
society rooted in social justice is even possible. How has humanity come to this
point where the quarterly reports of multinational corporations are equated
with societal progress? Is it simply because this is what the corporate media,
mainstream bourgeois politicians, consultants and academics working for various
institutions such as the Brookings Institution, and other organizations all
under the corporate purview define as progress and success in civilization? If
humanity and civilization have been reduced to econometric models of the IMF
and Goldman Sachs that measure the wealth of the wealthy and equate them with
human welfare what is humanity’s future and what does this say about our civilization?

In The Poverty of
Historicism (1957), Karl Popper denied the Hegelian thesis that there
are laws of human history and these are an indicator or predictor of the
future. The prophet of modern
neo-conservative ideology (combining capitalist economics with
imperial-militarist foreign policy), Popper denied the validity of the materialist
notion of interpreting history and the class struggle. Advocating a natural
order of inequality and perpetual war to strengthen capitalism
neo-conservatives following Popper view
communitarian ethics and collective welfare as an anathema, asserting the
primacy of egoism and self-interest as the ultimate moral principle
antithetical to altruism that Socialists advocate.

The extent to which the morality, or more
correctly immorality of egoism has been taken can be illustrated by the fact
that a number of billionaires and millionaires are spending enormous sums to
outfox the aging and even death. Capitalists spend more than $80 billion
annually in the anti-aging industry, although there is no proven way at this
juncture that human lifespan can be expanded and if so in any form of what we
would qualify as “quality of life”.

Lower global poverty, gender
equality, basic education and health care, and a sustainable future for all
people are desirable goals of many human-centered rather than market-focused
people for the past two centuries. The question is which development model can
achieve such goals if the political economy is structured to serve capitalist interests
and not the general welfare. Not any time in the near future, or in the next
half century do I expect systemic changes in the neoliberal political economy,
although the evolution toward social discontinuity is continuing.

Statistics indicate that there
is regression in the areas of social progress and this is expected to grow not
narrow no matter what the goals of the UN Millennium Development Goals to
reduce poverty in the next decade. The socioeconomic and political (military/police)
elites will do everything in their power to maintain their privileges against the
broader masses of the population demanding social justice and equality. Concessions
will be made to the broader masses only when absolutely necessary to preserve
the status quo but the road of social discontinuity will not be interrupted as
the system slowly decays from within just as did the Feudal/Manorial system
that no longer served the needs of society and capitalism came to replace it.

The natural evolution of
capitalism taking its course will simply crumble under its own destructive
contradictions and people will remove it because they will have no choice as it
will cease to serve society, minus a handful of very wealthy – 80 people currently
controlling more wealth than half of the world’s population subsisting at or
below poverty levels. Because capitalism is predicated on perpetuating
socioeconomic and geographic inequality while promising all people that they
too can be the “millionaire next door”, what will happen during the next
inevitable deep recession, perhaps depression like the 1930s, when people
worldwide demand systemic change and segments of the population engage in
various forms of resistance from peaceful to guerrilla warfare?

Will governments acting on
behalf of a capitalist system use the armed forces and the police to suppress
their own citizens as they have done in the past? Will they opt for “reforming”
capitalism so that wealth is not as concentrated but the system survives? Will
they resort to a form of dictatorship? This is an inevitable scenario because
capitalism is a system operating on expansion and contraction cycles with each
cycle imposing downward socioeconomic mobility. The only question is how the
political and socioeconomic elites as well as the general population in each
country will react to this inevitability.

As Joseph Schumpeter argued
in Capitalism,
Socialism and Democracy, Socialism will prevail because of “creative
destruction” that entails accumulation and annihilation of wealth under
capitalism would lead to its demise. How long it would take for Socialism to
take hold in society, and how fast and how far it would spread around the world
are difficult questions to answer. Nevertheless, neoliberal policies are taking
hold around the world and hasting the road to the demise of capitalism and the
transition toward a new social order. A new synthesis of Marxism and
Existentialism rooted in each country's culture, traditions, and needs of
workers and not just the bourgeoisie may produce successful leftist regimes in
the future. Socialism in some form, which has been around before civilization,
will eventually prevail.

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Seeking liberation from restraints of time, social conventions, and
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